Kickstarter is a pioneering Public Benefit Corporation dedicated to bringing creative projects to life. As a Senior Product Manager for Mobile Apps, you will play a vital role within the Product Management team, focusing on enhancing our iOS and Android applications to support our mission and vision. Your responsibilities will cover the full product lifecycle, from ideation to iterative releases, collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure meaningful outcomes.

If you’re keen to join a fully remote, dynamic team dedicated to making a real-world impact, then this guide, offered by Interview Query, will help you navigate the interview process, and familiarize you with common questions and useful tips for securing the position. Let's dive in!

Submitting Your Application

The first step is to submit a compelling application that reflects your technical skills and interest in joining Kickstarter as a Senior Product Manager for Mobile Apps. Whether you were contacted by a Kickstarter recruiter or have taken the initiative yourself, carefully review the job description and tailor your CV according to the prerequisites.

Tailoring your CV may include identifying specific keywords that the hiring manager might use to filter resumes and crafting a targeted cover letter. Furthermore, don’t forget to highlight relevant skills and mention your work experiences.

Recruiter/Hiring Manager Call Screening

If your CV happens to be among the shortlisted few, a recruiter from the Kickstarter Talent Acquisition Team will make contact and verify key details like your experiences and skill level. Behavioral questions may also be a part of the screening process.

In some cases, the Kickstarter product manager hiring manager stays present during the screening round to answer your queries about the role and the company itself. They may also indulge in surface-level technical and behavioral discussions.

The whole recruiter call should take about 30 minutes.

Technical Virtual Interview

Successfully navigating the recruiter round will present you with an invitation for the technical screening round. Technical screening for the Kickstarter Senior Product Manager role usually is conducted through virtual means, including video conference and screen sharing. Questions in this 1-hour long interview stage may revolve around Kickstarter’s data systems, product management processes, and metrics.

In the case of product manager roles, take-home assignments regarding product roadmap development, user analytics, and product feature suggestions are incorporated. Apart from these, your proficiency in A/B testing, data analysis, and project management fundamentals may also be assessed during the round.

Depending on the seniority of the position, case studies and similar real-scenario problems may also be assigned.

Onsite Interview Rounds

Followed by a second recruiter call outlining the next stage, you’ll be invited to attend the onsite interview loop. Multiple interview rounds, varying with the role, will be conducted during your day at the Kickstarter office. Your technical prowess, including familiarity with mobile app development and product lifecycle management, will be evaluated against the finalized candidates throughout these interviews.

If you were assigned take-home exercises, a presentation round may also await you during the onsite interview for the Senior Product Manager role at Kickstarter.

Quick Tips For Kickstarter Senior Product Manager Interviews

• Should contain three tips for interviewing for this specific company based on interview experiences.

• Know Kickstarter’s Mission and Values: Kickstarter is a Public Benefit Corporation dedicated to bringing creative projects to life. Understand the company’s mission and values deeply and think about how your work aligns with their goals.

• Be Data Driven: As a product manager, your ability to make data-informed decisions is crucial. Brush up on your knowledge of user analytics, A/B testing, and metrics development.
• Emphasize Collaboration: Kickstarter values collaboration across teams. Prepare to demonstrate your experience in leading cross-functional teams, building processes that enhance product development, and maintaining excellent communication with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Typically, interviews at Kickstarter vary by role and team, but commonly Product Manager interviews follow a fairly standardized process across these question topics.

• How would you set up an A/B test for multiple changes in a sign-up funnel? A team wants to A/B test changes in a sign-up funnel, such as changing a button from red to blue and/or moving it from the top to the bottom of the page. How would you design this test?

• Would you trust the results of an A/B test with 20 variants if one is significant? Your manager ran an A/B test with 20 different variants and found one significant result. Would you find anything suspicious about these results?

• Why might the average number of comments per user decrease despite user growth? A social media company launched in a new city and saw a decrease in the average number of comments per user from January to March, despite growing new users. What could be the reasons, and what metrics would you investigate?

• What metrics would you use to determine the value of marketing channels for a B2B company? Given all the different marketing channels and their respective costs at a B2B analytics dashboard company, what metrics would you use to assess the value of each channel?

• How would you locate a mouse in a 4x4 grid using the fewest scans? You have a 4x4 grid with a mouse trapped in one cell. You can "scan" subsets of cells to know if the mouse is within that subset. How would you determine the mouse's location using the fewest scans?

• Write a function called find_bigrams to return a list of all bigrams in a sentence or paragraph. Write a function called find_bigrams that takes a sentence or paragraph of strings and returns a list of all its bigrams in order. A bigram is a pair of consecutive words.

• Write a query to get the last transaction for each day from a table of bank transactions. Given a table of bank transactions with columns id, transaction_value, and created_at, write a query to get the last transaction for each day. The output should include the id, datetime, and transaction amount, ordered by datetime.

• Write a function find_change to find the minimum number of coins for a given amount of change. Write a function find_change to find the minimum number of coins that make up the given amount of change cents. Assume we only have coins of value 1, 5, 10, and 25 cents.

• Write a function to simulate drawing balls from a jar based on their counts. Write a function to simulate drawing balls from a jar. The colors of the balls are stored in a list named jar, with corresponding counts of the balls stored in the same index in a list called n_balls.

• Write a function calculate_rmse to calculate the root mean squared error of a regression model. Write a function calculate_rmse to calculate the root mean squared error of a regression model. The function should take in two lists, one that represents the predictions y_pred and another with the target values y_true.

• What is the expected number of good ads rated by different types of raters?
• Suppose we have 100 raters each rating one ad independently. What's the expected number of good ads?
• Now suppose we have 1 rater rating 100 ads. What's the expected number of good ads?

• Suppose we have 1 ad, rated as bad. What's the probability the rater was lazy?

• How to simulate coin tosses with a given probability of heads? Write a function that takes the number of tosses and the probability of heads as input and returns a list of randomly generated results ('H' for heads, 'T' for tails) equal in length to the number of tosses.

• How to calculate the sample variance of a list of integers? Write a function that takes a list of integers as input and outputs the sample variance, rounded to 2 decimal places.

• What is the probability of rolling at least one 3 with dice?

• What's the probability of rolling at least one 3 with 2 dice?

• What's the probability of rolling at least one 3 given (N) dice?

• What is the probability of finding an item on Amazon's website given its availability in warehouses? Given that the probability of item X being available at warehouse A is 0.6 and at warehouse B is 0.8, what is the probability that item X would be found on Amazon's website?

• What kind of model did the co-worker develop for loan approval? Your co-worker developed a model that takes customer inputs and returns if a loan should be given or not. Identify the type of model used.

• How would you measure the difference between two credit risk models? Given that personal loans are monthly installments, how would you compare the performance of two credit risk models within a specific timeframe?

• What metrics would you track to measure the success of a new credit risk model? Identify the key metrics to track in order to measure the success of a new credit risk model for personal loans.

• What metrics would you use to track the accuracy and validity of a spam classifier model? Assume you have built a V1 of a spam classifier for emails. Specify the metrics you would use to evaluate its accuracy and validity.

• What are the key differences between classification models and regression models? Explain the main differences between classification models and regression models.

• When would you use a bagging algorithm versus a boosting algorithm? Compare two machine learning algorithms and provide an example of the tradeoffs between using a bagging algorithm and a boosting algorithm.

• What would happen when you run logistic regression on perfectly linearly separable data? Describe the outcome of running logistic regression on a dataset that is perfectly linearly separable.

What is the average salary for a Product Manager at Kickstarter?

Q: What does a Product Manager at Kickstarter do?

A: As a Senior Product Manager at Kickstarter, you will oversee the full product lifecycle for iOS and Android apps, convert user insights and data into strategic plans, and work closely with various teams to develop and launch features. You'll be responsible for complex business objectives, communicating updates effectively, and improving product processes.

Q: What experience is required for the Senior Product Manager position?

A: Candidates should have 3-5 years of experience in product management for Native applications (iOS and Android), strong communication skills, a data-informed approach, and a track record of successful product roll-outs. Experience with cross-functional teams and a deep empathy for our community of creators is also crucial.

Q: What is the interview process like at Kickstarter?

A: Kickstarter values a fair and consistent interview process as part of our commitment to equality. Candidates can expect multiple rounds involving technical and non-technical stakeholders aimed at evaluating your fit for our team and mission.

Q: What benefits does Kickstarter offer?

A: Kickstarter offers a fully remote work arrangement, 100% employer-paid health plans, generous paid time off including 16 vacation days and a winter break, 25 volunteer hours annually, 16 weeks of parental leave, and a 4-day/32-hour workweek experiment.

Q: Where are Kickstarter employees located?

A: Our team is fully virtual, with employees based in various locations in the US, the UK, and Canada. If you reside in or are willing to move to these locations, you can join our team. Specific role locations will be mentioned in job postings.

Becoming a Senior Product Manager, Mobile Apps at Kickstarter means you'll be at the forefront of transformative projects that embody our mission to bring creative ideas to life. You'll be pivotal in guiding a talented cross-functional team to build and launch quality experiences across web and mobile platforms. This role offers the unique opportunity to work remotely with a diverse and passionate community, driving significant outcomes through a data-informed approach.

If you want more insights about the company, check out our main Kickstarter Interview Guide, where we have covered many interview questions that could be asked. We’ve also created interview guides for other roles, where you can learn more about Kickstarter’s interview process for different positions.

At Interview Query, we empower you to unlock your interview prowess with a comprehensive toolkit, equipping you with the knowledge, confidence, and strategic guidance to conquer every Kickstarter interview question and challenge.

You can check out all our company interview guides for better preparation, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Good luck with your interview!